Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Calvary Road Hession
The Calvary Road Hession
By Roy Hession
Copyright 1950 by the Roy Hession Book Trust, England
Available here by their kind permission.
INTRODUCTION...2
PREFACE...3
1. BROKENNESS...5
2. CUPS RUNNING OVER...7
3. THE WAY OF FELLOWSHIP...9
4. THE HIGHWAY OF HOLINESS...12
5. THE DOVE AND THE LAMB...15
6. REVIVAL IN THE HOME...18
7. THE MOTE AND THE BEAM...21
8. ARE YOU WILLING TO BE A SERVANT...23
9. THE POWER OF THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB...25
10. PROTESTING OUR INNOCENCE?...27
11. FORTY YEARS LATER...30
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INTRODUCTION
I am sure from my own experience, as well as from what we have seen in the ranks of our Mission these
last three years, that what the authors tell us about in these pages is one of God's vital words to His
worldwide church today. For long I had regarded revival only from the angle of some longed for, but very
rare, sudden outpouring of the Spirit on a company of people. I felt that there was a missing link
somewhere. Knowing of the continuing revival on a certain mission field and because it was continuing
and not merely sudden and passing, I long felt that they had a further secret we needed to learn. Then
chance came for heart to heart fellowship with them, first through one of our own missionary leaders
whose life and ministry had been transformed by a visit to that field, and then through conferences with
some of their missionaries on furlough and finally through the privilege of having two of the native
brethren living for six months at our headquarters.
From them I learned and saw that revival is first personal and immediate. It is the constant experience of
the simplest Christian who "walks in the light," but I saw that walking in the light means an altogether
new sensitiveness to sin, a calling things by their proper name of sin, such as pride, hardness, doubt, fear,
self-pity, which are often passed over as merely human reaction. It means a readiness to "break" and
confess at the feet of Him who was broken for us, for the Blood does not cleanse excuses, but always
cleanses sin, confessed as sin: then revival is just the daily experience of a soul full of Jesus and running
over.
Further, we are beginning to learn, as a company of Christ's witnesses, that the rivers of life to the world
do not flow out in their fullness through one man, but through the body, the team. Our brokenness and
openness must be two-way, horizontal as well as vertical, with one another as with God. We are just
beginning to experience in our own ranks that team work in the Spirit is one of the keys to revival, and
that we have to learn and practice the laws of a living fellowship.
I need not say more, as Roy Hession and his wife expound the whole matter. But we have seen God at
work in our midst. I could name half-a-dozen of our workers, several of them leaders, in whose lives there
have been a new spiritual revolution. Then rivulets of blessing in some of our individual lives have been
merging in a larger stream. God has been giving us times as a company when "as they prayed, the place
was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." Here and
there on our battle fields, distant and near, the sound of abundance of rain is being heard; and we believe
among many companies of God's people He is preparing afresh for these last days a "sharp threshing
instrument having teeth," and that what God is saying to us through this Revival, and through the
interpretation of that message in this pamphlet, is a word of the Lord for our day. May it be greatly used
to produce revived lives, revived fellowships and revived churches.
Norman P Grubb
Honorary Secretary
Worldwide Evangelization Crusade
London, 1950
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PREFACE
IN April, 1947, several missionaries came at my invitation to an Easter Conference which I was
organising. I invited them to come as speakers, because I had heard that they had been experiencing
Revival in their field for a number of years, and I was interested in Revival. What they had to say was
very different from much of what I had associated with Revival. It was very simple and very quiet. As
they unfolded their message and gave their testimonies, I discovered that I was the neediest person in the
conference and was far more in need of being revived than I had ever realised. That discovery, however,
only came slowly to me. Being myself one of the speakers, I suppose I was more concerned about others'
needs than my own. As my wife and others humbled themselves before God and experienced the
cleansing of the precious Blood of Jesus, I found myself left somewhat high and dry - dry just because I
was high. I was stumbled by the simplicity of the message, or rather the simplicity of what I had to do to
be revived and filled with the Spirit. When others at the end of the conference testified of how Jesus had
broken them at His Cross and filled their hearts to overflowing with His Holy Spirit, I had no such
testimony. It was only afterwards that I was enabled to give up trying to fit things into my doctrinal
scheme, and come humbly to the Cross for cleansing from my own personal sins. It was like beginning
my Christian life all over again. My flesh "came again like that of a little child," as did Naaman's when he
was willing to humble himself and dip himself in Jordan. And it has been an altogether new chapter in life
since then. It has meant, however, that I have had to choose constantly to die to the big "I," that Jesus
might be all, and constantly to come to Him for cleansing in His precious Blood. But that is just why it is
a new chapter.
At that time my wife and I had been issuing a little paper which we called "Challenge," in which we were
seeking to lead young Christians into a deeper experience of the Lord Jesus. It was natural, then, that in
the following issue we should put down what God had shown us. We simply put down in print the
Message of Revival as it had come to us. There was a sudden and surprising demand for the little paper,
because it carried this simple message. As we continued to write further of the Message of Revival in
subsequent issues, the demand continued to increase surprisingly. Letters came in almost every day
telling of the way God was blessing His people through it, and asking for further supplies. Requests began
to come from far away countries, to which the little paper was finding its way, and news began to come of
the beginnings of revival in the lives of God's people in various parts. Translations too were made into
French and German. We had been caught up in the current of God's working beyond anything we
expected or deserved. Indeed we had nothing to glory in, for it became evident that revival blessing was
not so much the result of "Challenge," as that "Challenge" was the result of revival blessing. God was at
work in many hearts and in many parts. The testimony of those who had been revived made others
hungry, who in turn found their way to the Cross, and so the blessing spread from life to life. And
wherever the blessing spread, the little paper seemed to go, for it sought to put in clear and Scriptural
language what so many were beginning to experience.
The connection of all this with the present little book is that this book is simply a collection of some of
those numbers of "Challenge." Circumstances make it difficult at the moment for us to continue to send
out further issues of "Challenge," and yet the requests for back numbers have continued to come in. There
is obviously a need for this simple Message of Revival to be made available to a wider circle of readers,
for there is a growing thirst in God's people for the Rivers of Living Water. And so, encouraged by God's
blessing on what has gone before, we have put together some of the more helpful numbers of
"Challenge," together with two extra chapters, and send them on their way, looking to God to use them as
He will. We cannot boast that this contains an orderly treatment of our subject chapter by chapter. Each
article was designed to be complete in itself, and therefore now that they are put together in one pamphlet,
there cannot but be a good deal of overlapping, and certain things will be seen to be repeated again and
again. It cannot, therefore, be regarded as an ordinary book, and the chapters might best be read each one
on its own, rather than the whole of them at one sitting.
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It must not be thought that this pamphlet represents a purely personal contribution on our part. The things
recorded in this book have been learnt in fellowship with others in various parts, who have begun, like
ourselves, to walk the Way of the Cross in a new way. Any others in that fellowship might have written
these chapters. It is a fellowship, too, which is continually growing, for an ever-increasing number of
lives are being quietly influenced and blessed by the movement of Revival in this country now. This fact,
we think, adds to the strength and significance of what is here written.
Now a word about Revival itself. The conception of Revival contained in the following pages may come
as a surprise to many. The common conception of Revival is usually that of a spectacular religious
awakening, in which large numbers of the unconverted are convicted of sin and brought to Christ amid a
good deal of excitement. Such a visitation of God's Spirit, while greatly to be desired, is thought to be
largely unaccountable. It is something for which one can only pray and we must wait for it in God's good
time. Meantime we must go on being defeated and the Church must somehow contrive to continue her
witness without New Life. Some of us are finding in actual fact that true revival is often the very reverse
of all this. Revival need not be spectacular at all (it is certainly no spectacle to the one who is facing up to
his sins in the light of the Cross!). Indeed where there is evidence of the spectacular, it is often the least
important part of revival. Our missionary friends seemed studiously to avoid reference to the spectacular
side of what they had been through, lest it might obscure the real challenge of what God was saying to us.
Then, too, revival is not something that God does firstly among the unconverted, but among His people.
Revival simply means New Life, and that implies that there is already Life there, but that the Life has
ebbed. The unconverted do not need revival, for there is not any life there to revive. They need vival. It is
the Christians who need revival. But that presupposes that there has been a declension. You only revive
that which has grown weak. And they only are candidates for revival who are prepared to confess that
there has been a declension in their lives. And the more specific the confession, the more definitely will
God revive. And when that happens among us Christians, God will be able to work among the lost in new
power and we shall see a new work of grace there. One of Evan Roberts' mottoes in the days of the Welsh
Revival was "Bend the Church and save the people." And the two are always linked. The world has lost
its faith, because the Church has lost its fire
One last thing needs to be said about the necessary attitude of heart of the reader. If God is to bless him at
all through these pages, he must come to them with a deep hunger of heart. He must be possessed with a
dissatisfaction of the state of the Church in general, and of himself in particular - especially of himself.
He must be willing for God to begin His work in himself first, rather than in the other man. He must,
moreover, be possessed with the holy expectancy that God can and will meet his need. If he is in any
sense a Christian leader, the urgency of the matter is intensified many times over. His willingness to
admit his need and be blessed will determine the degree to which God can bless the people to whom he
ministers. Above all he must realise that he must be the first to humble himself at the Cross. If a new
honesty with regard to sin is needed among his people, he must realise it must begin with himself. It was
when the King of Nineveh arose from his throne and covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes as a
sign of his repentance, that his people repented.
Let not, however, those readers who are not leaders be tempted to look at those who are and wait for
them. God wants to begin with each one of us. He wants to begin with YOU.
May God bless us all.
Roy HESSION.
January, 1950.
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CHAPTER I
BROKENNESS
We want to be very simple in this matter of Revival. Revival is just the life of the Lord Jesus poured into
human hearts. Jesus is always victorious. In heaven they are praising Him all the time for His victory.
Whatever may be our experience of failure and barrenness, He is never defeated. His power is boundless.
And we, on our part, have only to get into a right relationship with Him, and we shall see His power being
demonstrated in our hearts and lives and service, and victorious life will fill us and overflow through us to
others. And that is Revival in its essence.
If, however, we are to come into this right relationship with Him, the first thing we must learn is that our
wills must be broken to His will. To be broken is the beginning of Revival. It is painful, humiliating, but
it is the only way. It is being "Not I, but Christ” (Gal 2:20), and a "C" is a bent "I." The Lord Jesus cannot
live in us fully and reveal Himself through until the proud self within us is broken. This simply means
that the hard unyielding self, which justifies itself, wants its own way, stands up for its rights, and seeks
its own glory, at last bows its head to God's will, admits its wrong, gives up its own way to Jesus,
surrenders its rights and discards its own glory - that the Lord Jesus might have all and be all. In other
words it is dying to self and self-attitudes.
As we look honestly at our Christian lives, we can see how much of this self there is in each of us. It is so
often self who tries to live the Christian life (the mere fact that we use the word 'try' indicates that it is self
who has the responsibility). It is self, too, who is often doing Christian work. It is always self who gets
irritable and envious and resentful and critical and worried. It is self who is hard and unyielding in its
attitudes to others. It is self who is shy and self-conscious and reserved. No wonder we need breaking. As
long as self is in control, God can do little with us, for all the fruits of the Spirit (they are enumerated in
Galatians 5), with which God longs to fill us, are the complete antithesis of the hard, unbroken spirit
within us and presupposes that it has been crucified.
Being broken is both God's work and ours. He brings His pressure to bear, but we have to make the
choice. If we are really open to conviction as we seek fellowship with God (and willingness for the light
is the prime condition of fellowship with God), God will show us the expressions of this proud, hard self
that cause Him pain. Then it is, we can stiffen our necks and refuse to repent or we can bow the head and
say, "Yes, Lord." Brokenness in daily experience is simply the response of humility to the conviction of
God. And inasmuch as this conviction is continuous, we shall need to be broken continually. And this can
be very costly, when we see all the yielding of rights and selfish interests that this will involve, and the
confessions and restitutions that may be sometimes necessary.
For this reason, we are not likely to be broken except at the Cross of Jesus. The willingness of Jesus to be
broken for us is the all-compelling motive in our being broken too. We see Him, Who is in the form of
God, counting not equality with God a prize to be grasped at and hung on to, but letting it go for us and
taking upon Him the form of a Servant - God's Servant, man's Servant. We see Him willing to have no
rights of His own, no home of His own, no possessions of His own, willing to let men revile Him and not
revile again, willing to let men tread on Him and not retaliate or defend Himself. Above all, we see Him
broken as He meekly goes to Calvary to become men's scapegoat by bearing their sins in His own body
on the Tree. In a pathetic passage in a prophetic Psalm, He says, "I am a worm and no man" (Psa 22:6).
Those who have been in tropical lands tell us that there is a big difference between a snake and a worm,
when you attempt to strike at them. The snake rears itself up and hisses and tries to strike back - a true
picture of self. But a worm offers no resistance, it allows you to do what you like with it, kick it or squash
it under your heel - a picture of true brokenness. And Jesus was willing to become just that for us - a
worm and no man. And He did so, because that is what He saw us to be, worms having forfeited all rights
by our sin, except to deserve hell. And He now calls us to take our rightful place as worms for Him and
with Him. The whole Sermon on the Mount with its teaching of non-retaliation, love for enemies and
selfless giving, assumes that that is our position. But only the vision of the Love that was willing to be
broken for us can constrain us to be willing for that.
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Lord, bend that proud and stiff necked I,
Help me to bow the head and die;
Beholding Him on Calvary,
Who bowed His head for me.
But dying to self is not a thing we do once for all. There may be an initial dying when God first shows
these things, but ever after it will be a constant dying, for only so can the Lord Jesus be revealed
constantly through us (2 Cor 4:10). All day long the choice will be before us in a thousand ways. It will
mean no plans, no time, no money, no pleasure of our own. It will mean a constant yielding to those
around us, for our yieldedness to God is measured by our yieldedness to man. Every humiliation,
everyone who tries and vexes us, is God's way of breaking us, so that there is a yet deeper channel in us
for the Life of Christ.
You see, the only life that pleases God and that can be victorious is His life - never our life, no matter
how hard we try. But inasmuch as our self-centred life is the exact opposite of His, we can never be filled
with His life unless we are prepared for God to bring our life constantly to death. And in that we must
co-operate by our moral choice.
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CHAPTER 2
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been cleansed from sin, let us not keep mourning over it, let us not be occupied with ourselves. But let us
look up to our victorious Lord, and praise Him that He is still victorious.
There is one simple but all-inclusive guide the Word of God gives to regulate our walk with Jesus and to
make us to know when sin has come in. Colossians 3:15 says, "Let the peace of God rule in your hearts."
Everything that disturbs the peace of God in our hearts is sin, no matter how small it is, and no matter
how little like sin it may at first appear to be. This peace is to "rule" our hearts, or (a more literal
translation) "be the referee" in our hearts. When the referee blows his whistle at a football match, the
game has to stop, a foul has been committed. When we lose our peace, God's referee in our hearts has
blown his whistle! Let us stop immediately, ask God to show us what is wrong, put by faith the sin He
shows us under the Blood of Jesus, and then peace will be restored and we shall go on our way with our
cups running over. If, however, God does not give us His peace, it will be because we are not really
broken. Perhaps we have yet to say "sorry" to somebody else as well as to God. Or perhaps we still feel it
is the other person's fault. But if we have lost our peace, it is obvious whose fault it is. We do not lose
peace with God over another person's sin, but only over our own. God wants to show us our reactions,
and only when we are willing to be cleansed there, will we have His peace. Oh, what a simple but
searching thing it is to be ruled by the peace of God, none other than the Holy Spirit Himself! Former
selfish ways, which we never bothered about, are now shown to us and we cannot walk in them without
the referee blowing his whistle. Grumbling, bossiness, carelessness, down to the smallest thing are all
revealed as sins, when we are prepared to let our days be ruled by the peace of God. Many times a day
and over the smallest things we shall have to avail ourselves of the cleansing Blood of Jesus, and we shall
find ourselves walking the way of brokenness as never before. But Jesus will be manifested in all His
loveliness and grace in that brokenness.
Many of us, however, have neglected the referee's whistle so often and for so long that we have ceased to
hear it. Days follow days and we feel we have little need of cleansing and no occasion of being broken. In
that condition we are usually in a worse state than we ever imagine. It will need a great hunger for
restored fellowship with God to possess our hearts before we will be willing to cry to God to show us
where the Blood of Jesus must be applied. He will show us, to begin with, just one thing, and it will be
our obedience and brokenness on that one thing that will be the first step into Revival for us.
* Some may be inclined to question whether it is right to call such things as self-consciousness, reserve
and fear, sins. "Call them infirmities, disabilities, temperamental weaknesses, if you will," some have
said, "but not sins. To do so would be to get us into bondage." The reverse, however, is true. If these
things are not sins, then we must put up with them for the rest of our lives; there is no deliverance. But if
these and other things like them are indeed sins, then there is a Fountain for sin, and we may experience
cleansing and deliverance from them, if we put them immediately under His precious Blood, the moment
we are conscious of them. And they are sins. Their source is unbelief and an inverted form of pride, and
they have hindered and hidden Him times without number.
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CHAPTER 3
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THE ONLY BASIS FOR FELLOWSHIP
The only basis for real fellowship with God and man is to live out in the open with both. "But if we walk
in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another." To walk in the light is the
opposite of walking in darkness. Spurgeon defines it in one of his sermons as "the willingness to know
and be known." As far as God is concerned, this means that we are willing to know the whole truth about
ourselves, we are open to conviction. We will bend the neck to the first twinges of conscience. Everything
He shows us to be sin, we will deal with as sin - we will hide or excuse nothing. Such a walk in the light
cannot but disclose sin increasingly in our lives, and we shall see things to be sin which we never thought
to be such before. For that reason we might shrink from this walk, and be tempted to make for cover. But
the verse goes on with the precious words, "and the Blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all
sin." Everything that the light of God shows up as sin, we can confess and carry to the Fountain of Blood
and it is gone, gone from God's sight and gone from our hearts. By the power of the precious Blood we
can be made more stainless than the driven snow; and thus continually abiding in the light and cleansed
by the Blood, we have fellowship with God.
The fellowship promised us here is not only with God, but "one with another"; and that involves us in
walking in the light with our brother too. In any case, we cannot be "in the open" with God and "in the
dark" with him. This means that we must be as willing to know the truth about ourselves from our brother
as to know it from God. We must be prepared for him to hold the light to us (and we must be willing to do
the same service for him) and challenge us in love about anything he sees in our lives which is not the
highest. We must be willing not only to know, but to be known by him for what we really are. That means
we are not going to hide our inner selves from those with whom we ought to be in fellowship; we are not
going to window dress and put on appearances; nor are we going to whitewash and excuse ourselves. We
are going to be honest about ourselves with them. We are willing to give up our spiritual privacy, pocket
our pride and risk our reputations for the sake of being open and transparent with our brethren in Christ. It
means, too, that we are not going to cherish any wrong feeling in our hearts about another, but we are first
going to claim deliverance from it from God and put it right with the one concerned. As we walk this
way, we shall find that we shall have fellowship with one another at an altogether new level, and we shall
not love one another less, but infinitely more.
NO BONDAGE
Walking in the light is simply walking with Jesus. Therefore there need be no bondage about it. We have
not necessarily got to tell everybody everything about ourselves. The fundamental thing is our attitude of
walking in the light, rather than the act. Are we willing to be in the open with our brother - and be so in
word when God tells us to? That is the "armour of light" - true transparency. This may sometimes be
humbling, but it will help us to a new reality with Christ, and to a new self-knowledge. We have become
so used to the fact that God knows all about us that it does not seem to register with us, and we inevitably
end by not knowing the truth about ourselves. But let a man begin to be absolutely honest about himself
with but one other, as God guides him, and he will come to a knowledge of himself and his sins that he
never had before, and he will begin to see more clearly than ever before where the redemption of Christ
has got to be applied progressively to his life. This is the reason why James tells us to put ourselves under
the discipline of "confessing our faults one to another."
In 1 John 1:7, of course, the purpose of "walking in the light" is that we might "have fellowship one with
another." And what fellowship it is when we walk this way together! Obviously, love will flow from one
to another, when each is prepared to be known as the repentant sinner he is at the Cross of Jesus. When
the barriers are down and the masks are off, God has a chance of making us really one. But there is also
the added joy of knowing that in such a fellowship we are "safe." No fear now that others may be thinking
thoughts about us or having reactions toward us which they are hiding from us. In a fellowship which is
committed to walk in the light beneath the Cross, we know that if there is any thought about us it will
quickly be brought into the light, either in brokenness and confession (where there has been wrong and
unlove), or else as a loving challenge, as something that we ought to know about ourselves.
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It must not, however, be forgotten that our walk in the light is first and foremost with the Lord Jesus. It is
with Him first that we must get things settled and it is His cleansing and victory that must first be
obtained. Then when God guides us to open our hearts with others, we come to them with far more of a
testimony than a confession (except where that is specifically due) and we praise God together.
TEAMS OF TWO FOR REVIVAL
Jesus wants you to begin walking in the light with Him in a new way today. Join with one other - your
Christian friend, the person you live with, your wife, your husband. Drop the mask. God has doubtless
convicted you of one thing more than another that you have got to be honest with them about. Start there.
Be a team of two to work for revival amongst your circle. As others are broken at the Cross they will be
added to your fellowship, as God leads. Get together from time to time for fellowship and to share your
spiritual experience with real openness. In complete oneness pray together for others, and go out as a
team with fresh testimony. God through such a fellowship will begin to work wondrously. As He saves
and blesses others in this vital way, they can start to live and work as a fellowship too. As one billiard ball
will move another billiard ball, so one group will set off another group, until the whole of our land is
covered with New Life from the risen Lord Jesus.
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CHAPTER 4
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Oh, to be saved from myself, dear Lord,
Oh, to be lost in Thee,
Oh, that it might be no more I,
But Christ that lives in me.
Some of us have found that there is no prayer that God is so swift to answer as the prayer that He might
break us.
A CONSTANT CHOICE
Do not let us imagine that we have to be broken only once as we go through the door. Ever after it will be
a constant choice before us. God brings His pressure to bear on us, but we have to make the choice. If
someone hurts and slights us, we immediately have the choice of accepting the slight as a means of grace
to humble us lower or we can resist it and stiffen our necks again with all the disturbance of spirit that that
is bound to bring. Right the way through the day our brokenness will be tested, and it is no use our
pretending we are broken before God if we are not broken in our attitude to those around us. God nearly
always tests us through other people. There are no second causes for the Christian. God's will is made
known in His providence, and His providences are so often others with their many demands on us. If you
find yourself in a patch of unbrokenness, the only way is to go afresh to Calvary and see Christ broken for
you and you will come away willing to be broken for Him.
Over the Door of the Broken Ones is sprinkled the precious Blood of the Lord Jesus. As we bend to crawl
through, the Blood cleanses from all sin. For not only have we to bend to get through, but only the clean
can walk the Highway. Maybe you have never known Jesus as your Saviour, maybe you have known Him
for years, but in either case you are defiled by sin, the sins of pride, envy, resentment, impurity, etc. If you
will give them all to Him who bore them on the Cross, He will whisper to you again what He once said on
the Cross, "It is finished," and your heart will be cleansed whiter than snow.
THE GIFT OF HIS FULLNESS
So we get on to the Highway. There it stretches before us, a narrow uphill road, bathed in light, leading
towards the Heavenly Jerusalem. The embankment on either side slopes away into thick darkness. In fact,
the darkness creeps right to the very edges of the Highway, but on the Highway itself all is light. Behind
us is the Cross, no longer dark and forbidding but radiant and glowing, and we no longer see Jesus
stretched across its arms, but walking the Highway overflowing with resurrection life. In His Hands He
carries a pitcher with the Water of Life. He comes right up to us and asks us to hold out our hearts, and
just as if we were handing Him a cup, we present to Him our empty hearts. He looks inside - a painful
scrutiny - and where He sees we have allowed His Blood to cleanse them, He fills them with the Water of
Life. So we go on our way rejoicing and praising God and overflowing with His new life. This is revival.
You and I full of the Holy Spirit all the time, loving others and concerned for their salvation. No
struggling, no tarrying. Just simply giving Him each sin to cleanse in His precious Blood and accepting
from His hands the free gift of His Fullness, and then allowing Him to do the work through us. As we
walk along with Him, He is always there continually filling so that our cups continually overflow.
So the rest of our Christian life simply consists now of walking along the Highway, with hearts
overflowing, bowing the neck to His will all the time, constantly trusting the Blood to cleanse us and
living in complete oneness with Jesus. There is nothing spectacular about this life, no emotional
experiences to sigh after and wait for. It is just plain day to day living the life the Lord intended us to live.
This is real holiness.
OFF THE HIGHWAY
But we may, and sometimes do, slip off the Highway, for it is narrow. One little step aside and we are off
the path and in darkness. It is always because of a failure in obedience somewhere or a failure to be weak
enough to let God do all. Satan is always beside the road, shouting at us, but he cannot touch us. But we
can yield to his voice by an act of will. This is the beginning of sin and slipping away from Jesus.
Sometimes we find ourselves stiffening our necks to someone, sometimes to God Himself. Sometimes
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jealousy or resentment assails us. Immediately we are over the side, for nothing unclean can walk the
Highway. Our cup is dirtied and ceases to overflow and we lose our peace with God. If we do not come
back to the Highway at once, we shall go further down the side. We must get back. How? The first thing
to do is to ask God to show what caused us to slip off; and He will, though it often takes Him time to
make us see. Perhaps someone annoyed me, and I was irritated. God wants me to see that it was not the
thing that the person did that matters, but my reaction to it. If I had been broken, I would not have been
irritated. So, as I look longingly back to the Highway, I see the Lord Jesus again and I see what an ugly
thing it is to get irritable and that Jesus died to save me from being irritable. As I crawl up again to the
Highway on hands and knees, I come again to Him and His Blood for cleansing. Jesus is waiting there to
fill my cup to overflowing once again. Hallelujah! No matter where you leave the Highway, you will
always find Him calling you to come back and be broken again, and always the Blood will be there to
cleanse and make you clean. This is the great secret of the Highway - knowing what to do with sin, when
sin has come in. The secret is always to take sin to the Cross, see there its sinfulness, and then put it under
the Blood and reckon it gone.
So the real test all along the Highway will be - are our cups running over? Have we the peace of God in
our hearts? Have we love and concern for others? These things are the barometer of the Highway. If they
are disturbed, then sin has crept in somewhere - self-pity, self-seeking, self-indulgence in thought or deed,
sensitiveness, touchiness, self-defence, self-consciousness, shyness, reserve, worry, fear and so on.
OUR WALK WITH OTHERS
An important thing about the Highway which has not been mentioned yet is that we do not walk this
Highway alone. Others walk it with us. There is, of course, the Lord Jesus. But there are other wayfarers,
too, and the rule of the road is that fellowship with them is as important as fellowship with Jesus. Indeed,
the two are intimately connected. Our relationship with our fellows and our relationship with God are so
linked that we cannot disturb one without disturbing the other. Everything that comes between us and
another, such as impatience, resentment or envy, comes between us and God. These barriers are
sometimes no more than veils - veils through which we can still, to some extent, see. But if not removed
immediately, they thicken into blankets and then into brick walls, and we are shut off from both God and
our fellows, shut in to ourselves. It is clear why these two relationships should be so linked. "God is
love," that is, love for others, and the moment we fail in love towards another, we put ourselves out of
fellowship with God - for God loves him, even if we don't.
But more than that, the effect of such sins is always to make us "walk in darkness" - that is, to cover it up
and hide what we really are or what we are really feeling. That is always the meaning of "darkness" in
Scripture, for while the light reveals, the darkness hides. The first effect of sin in us is always to make us
hide; with the result that we are pretending, we are wearing a mask, we are not real with either God or
man. And, of course, neither God nor man can fellowship with an unreal person.
The way back into fellowship with the Lord Jesus will bring us again into fellowship with our brother,
too. All unlove must be recognised as sin and given to the Lord Jesus for His Blood to cover - and then it
can be put right with our brother also. As we come back to the Lord Jesus like this, we shall find His love
for our brother filling our hearts and wanting to express itself in our actions toward him and we shall walk
in fellowship together again.
So this is the Highway life. It is no new astounding doctrine. It is not something new for us to preach. It is
quite unspectacular. It is just a life to live day by day in whatever circumstances the Lord has put us. It
does not contradict what we may have read or heard about the Christian life. It just puts into simple
pictorial language the great truths of sanctification. To start to live this life now will mean revival in our
lives. To continue to live it will be revival continued. Revival is just you and I walking along the
Highway in complete oneness with the Lord Jesus and with one another, with cups continually cleansed
and overflowing with the life and love of God.
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CHAPTER 5
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WILLING TO BE SHORN
Then He was the shorn Lamb, willing to be shorn of His rights, His reputation, and every human liberty
that was due to Him, just as a lamb is shorn of its wool. He never resisted: A lamb never does. When He
was reviled for our sakes, He reviled not again. When He suffered, He threatened not. He never said,
"You cannot treat Me like that. Don't you know that I am the Son of God?" But we - ah we, on how many
occasions have we been unwilling to be shorn of that which was our right. We were not willing for His
sake to lose what was our own. We insisted, too, that we should be treated with the respect due to our
position. We resisted, and we fought. The Dove had to take His flight from us for we were not willing to
be shorn lambs, and we were left without peace, hard and unloving.
HE ANSWERED NOTHING
Then further, He was the silent Lamb. "As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His
mouth." Facing the calumnies of men, we read, "He answered nothing." He never defended Himself, nor
explained Himself. But we have been anything but silent when others have said unkind or untrue things
about us. Our voices have been loud in self-defence and self-vindication, and there has been anger in our
voices. We have excused ourselves, when we should have admitted frankly our wrong. On every such
occasion the Dove had to take His flight, and withdraw His peace and blessing from our hearts, because
we were not willing to be the silent lamb.
NO GRUDGES
He was also the spotless Lamb. Not only did nothing escape His lips, but there was nothing in His heart
but love for those who had sent Him to the Cross. There was no resentment towards them, no grudges, no
bitterness. Even as they were putting the nails through His hands, He was murmuring, "I forgive you,"
and He asked His Father to forgive them too. He was willing to suffer it in meekness for us. But what
resentment and bitterness have not we had in our hearts - toward this one and that one, and over so much
less than what they did to Jesus. Each reaction left a stain on our hearts, and the Dove had to fly away
because we were not willing to bear it and forgive it for Jesus' sake.
RETURN, OH DOVE!
These, then, are the acts and attitudes which drive the Holy Spirit from our lives, as far as present blessing
is concerned, and they are all sin. Sin is the only thing that hinders the revival of His Church. The
question of all questions for us just now is, "How can the Dove return to our lives with His peace and
power?" The answer is again just simply, "The Lamb of God," for He is not only the simple Lamb and the
shorn Lamb and the silent Lamb and the spotless Lamb, but above everything else He is the substitute
Lamb.
To the Jew the lamb that was offered to God was always a substitute lamb. Its meekness and
submissiveness was only incidental to its main work, that of being slain for his sin and of its blood being
sprinkled on the altar to atone for it. The humility of the Lord Jesus in becoming our Lamb was necessary
only that He might become on the Cross our Substitute, our scapegoat, carrying our sins in His own Body
on the Tree, so that there might be forgiveness for our sins and cleansing from all their stains, when we
repent of them. But inasmuch as there is no past or future with God, but all is present and timeless, there
is a sense in which the suffering of the Lord Jesus for the sins of which we have not repented is present
too. What a vision it is when we see these sins wounding and hurting Him now! May this solemn thought
break our proud hearts in repentance! For it is only when we have seen these sins of ours in the heart of
Jesus, so that we are broken and willing to repent of them and put them right, that the Blood of the Lamb
cleanses us from them and the Dove returns with peace and blessing to our hearts.
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He humbled Himself to the manger,
And even to Calvary's tree;
But I am so proud and unwilling,
His humble disciple to be.
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CHAPTER 6
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fellowship are impossible in the home. This is what the Scripture calls "walking in darkness" - for the
darkness is anything which hides.
THE FAILURE OF LOVE
The second thing that is wrong with our homes is our failure really to love one another. "Well," says
somebody, "that could never be said of our home, for no one could love one another more than my
husband and I love each other!" But wait a minute! It depends on what you mean by love. Love is not just
a sentimental feeling, nor even strong passion. The famous passage in 1 Corinthians 13 tells us what real
love is, and if we test ourselves by it we may find that after all we are hardly loving one another at all, and
our behaviour is all in the opposite direction - and the opposite of love is hate! Let us look at some of the
things that that passage tells us about love.
'Love is long suffering (patient) and is kind;
Love envieth not (is not jealous);
Love vaunteth not itself (does not boast),
is not puffed up (is not conceited);
Love does not behave itself unseemly (is not rude),
seeketh not her own (is not selfish),
is not easily provoked (does not get irritated),
thinketh no evil (does not entertain unkind thoughts of another).'
How do we stand up to those tests in our homes? So often we act in the very opposite way.
We are often impatient with one another and even unkind in the way we answer back or react.
How much envy, too, there can be in a home. A husband and wife can envy the other their gifts, even
their spiritual progress. Parents may be envious of their children, and how often is there not bitter envy
between brothers and sisters.
Also "not behaving unseemly," that is, courtesy, what about that? Courtesy is just love in little things, but
it is in the little things that we trip up. We think we can "let up" at home.
How "puffed up," that is, conceited, we so often are! Conceit comes out in all sorts of ways. We think we
know best, we want our way and we nag or boss the other one; and nagging or bossing leads on to the
tendency to despise the other one. Our very attitude of superiority sets us up above them. Then, when at
the bottom of our hearts we despise someone, we blame them for everything - and yet we think we love.
Then what about "seeking not our own," that is, not being selfish? Many times a day we put our wishes
and interests before those of the other one.
How "easily provoked" we are! How quick to be irritated by something in the other. How often we allow
the unkind thought, the resentful feeling over something the other has done or left undone! Yet we profess
there are no failures in love in our homes. These things happen every day and we think nothing of them.
They are all of them the opposite of love, and the opposite of love is hate. Impatience is hate, envy is hate,
conceit and self-will are hate, and so are selfishness, irritability and resentment! And hate is SIN. "He that
saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in the darkness even until now." What tensions, barriers
and discord it all causes, and fellowship with both God and the other is made impossible.
THE ONLY WAY OUT
Now the question is, do I want new life, revival, in my home? I have got to challenge my heart about this.
Am I prepared to continue in this state or am I really hungry for new life, His life, in my home? For not
unless I am really hungry will I be willing to take the necessary steps. The first step I must take is to call
sin, sin (my sin, not the other person's) and go with it to the Cross, and trust the Lord Jesus there and then
to cleanse me from it.
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As we bow the neck at the Cross, His self-forgetful love for the others, His long-suffering and
forbearance flow into our hearts. The precious Blood cleanses us from the unlove and ill-will and the
Holy Spirit fills us with the very nature of Jesus. 1 Corinthians 13 is nothing less than the nature of Jesus,
and it is all gift to us, for His nature is ours, if He is ours. This blessed process can happen every single
time the beginnings of sin and unlove creep in, for the cleansing fountain of Blood is available to us all
the time.
All this will commit us very definitely to walking the Way of the Cross in our homes. Again and again we
will see places where we must yield up our rights, as Jesus yielded up His for us. We shall have to see
that the thing in us that reacts so sharply to another's selfishness and pride, is simply our own selfishness
and pride, which we are unwilling to sacrifice. We shall have to accept another's ways and doings as
God's will for us and meekly bend the neck to all God's providences. That does not mean that we must
accept another's selfishness as God's will for them - far from it - but only as God's will for us. As far as
the other is concerned, God will probably want to use us, if we are broken, to help him see his need.
Certainly, if we are a parent we shall often need to correct our child with firmness. But none of this is to
be from selfish motives, but only out of love for the other and a longing for their good. Our own
convenience and rights must all the time be yielded. Only so will the love of the Lord Jesus be able to fill
us and express itself through us.
When we have been broken at Calvary, we must be willing to put things right with the others - sometimes
even with the children. This is, so often, the test of our brokenness. Brokenness is the opposite of
hardness. Hardness says, "It's your fault!" Brokenness, however, says, "It's my fault!" What a different
atmosphere will begin to prevail in our homes when they hear us say that. Let us remember that at the
Cross there is only room for one at a time. We cannot say, "I was wrong, but you were wrong too. You
must come as well!" No, you must go alone, saying, "I'm wrong." God will work in the other more
through your brokenness than through anything else you can do or say. We may, however, have to wait -
perhaps a long time. But that should only give us to feel more with God, for, as someone has said, "He
too has had to wait a long time since His great attempt to put things right with man nineteen hundred
years ago, although there was no wrong on His side." But God will surely answer our prayer and bring the
other to Calvary too. There we shall be one; there the middle wall of partition between us will be broken
down; there we shall be able to walk in the light, in true transparency, with Jesus and with one another,
loving each other with a pure heart fervently. Sin is almost the only thing we have in common with
everyone else, and so at the feet of Jesus where sin is cleansed is the only place where we can be one.
Real oneness conjures up for us the picture of two or more sinners together at Calvary.
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CHAPTER 7
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But let us not think that a beam is of necessity some violent reaction on our part. The first beginning of a
resentment is a beam, as is also the first flicker of an unkind thought, or the first suggestion of unloving
criticism. Where that is so, it only distorts our vision and we shall never see our brother as he really is,
beloved of God. If we speak to our brother with that in our hearts, it will only provoke him to adopt the
same hard attitude to us, for it is a law of human relationships that "with what measure ye mete, it shall be
measured to you again."
TAKE IT TO CALVARY
No! "First cast out the beam out of thine own eye." That is the first thing we must do. We must recognise
our unloving reaction to him as sin. On our knees we must go with it to Calvary and see Jesus there and
get a glimpse of what that sin cost Him. At His Feet we must repent of it and be broken afresh and trust
the Lord Jesus to cleanse it away in His precious Blood and fill us with His love for that one - and He
will, and does, if we will claim His promise. Then we shall probably need to go to the other in the attitude
of the repentant one, tell him of the sin that has been in our heart and what the Blood has effected there
and ask him to forgive us too. Very often bystanders will tell us, and sometimes our own hearts, that the
sin we are confessing is not nearly so bad as the other's wrong, which he is not yet confessing. But we
have been to Calvary, indeed we are learning to live under the shadow of Calvary, and we have seen our
sin there and we can no longer compare our sin with another's.
As we take these simple steps of repentance, then we see clearly to cast out the mote out of the other's
eye, for the beam in our eye has gone. In that moment God will pour light in on us as to the other's need,
that neither he nor we ever had before. We may see then that the mote we were so conscious of before, is
virtually non-existent - it was but the projection of something that was in us. On the other hand, we may
have revealed to us hidden underlying things, of which he himself was hardly conscious. Then as God
leads us, we must lovingly and humbly challenge him, so that he may see them too, and bring them to the
Fountain for sin and find deliverance. He will be more likely than ever to let us do it - indeed if he is a
humble man, he will be grateful to us, for he will know now that there is no selfish motive in our heart,
but only love and concern for him.
When God is leading us to challenge another, let not fear hold us back. Let us not argue or press our
point. Let us just say what God has told us to and leave it there. It is God's work, not ours, to cause the
other to see it. It takes time to be willing to bend "the proud stiff-necked I." When we in turn are
challenged, let us not defend ourselves and explain ourselves. Let us take it in silence, thanking the other;
and then go to God about it and ask Him. If he was right, let us be humble enough to go and tell him, and
praise God together. There is no doubt that we need each other desperately. There are blind spots in all
our lives that we shall never see, unless we are prepared for another to be God's channel to us.
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CHAPTER 8
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Secondly, in doing this he must be willing not to be thanked for it. How often we serve others, but what
self-pity we have in our hearts and how bitterly we complain that they take it as a matter of course and do
not thank us for it. But a bondservant must be willing for that. Hired servants may expect something, but
not bondservants.
And, thirdly, having done all this, he must not charge the other with selfishness. As I read the passage, I
could not but feel that the master was rather selfish and inconsiderate. But there is no such charge from
the bondservant. He exists to serve the interests of his master and the selfishness or otherwise of his
master does not come into it with him. But we? We can perhaps allow ourselves to be "put upon" by
others, and are willing perhaps not to be thanked for what we do, but how we charge the other in our
minds with selfishness! But that is not the place of a bondservant. He is to find in the selfishness of others
but a further opportunity to identify himself afresh with His Lord as the servant of all.
There is a fourth step still to which we must go. Having done all that, there is no ground for pride or
self-congratulation, but we must confess that we are unprofitable servants, that is, that we are of no real
use to God or man in ourselves. We must confess again and again that "in us, that is in our flesh, there
dwelleth no good thing," that, if we have acted thus, it is no thanks to us, whose hearts are naturally proud
and stubborn, but only to the Lord Jesus, who dwells in us and who has made us willing.
The bottom of self is quite knocked out by the fifth and last step - the admission that doing and bearing
what we have in the way of meekness and humility, we have not done one stitch more than it was our duty
to do. God made man in the first place simply that he might be God's bondservant. Man's sin has simply
consisted in his refusal to be God's bondservant. His restoration can only be, then, a restoration to the
position of a bondservant. A man, then, has not done anything specially meritorious when he has
consented to take that position, for he was created and redeemed for that very thing.
This, then, is the Way of the Cross. It is the way that God's lowly Bondservant first trod for us, and
should not we, the bondservants of that Bondservant, tread it still? Does it seem hard and forbidding, this
way down? Be assured, it is the only way up. It was the way by which the Lord Jesus reached the Throne,
and it is the way by which we, too, reach the place of spiritual power, authority and fruitfulness. Those
who tread this path are radiant, happy souls, overflowing with the life of their Lord. They have found "he
that humbleth himself shall be exalted" to be true for them as for their Lord. Where before humility was
an unwelcome intruder to be put up with only on occasions, she has now become the spouse of their
souls, to whom they have wedded themselves for ever. If darkness and unrest enter their souls it is only
because somewhere on some point they have been unwilling to walk with her in the paths of meekness
and brokenness. But she is ever ready to welcome them back into her company, as they seek her face in
repentance.
That brings us to the all-important matter of repentance. We shall not enter into more abundant life
merely by resolving that we shall be humbler in the future. There are attitudes and actions which have
already taken place and are still being persisted in (if only by our unwillingness to apologise for them)
that must first be repented of. The Lord Jesus did not take upon Him the form of a bondservant merely to
give us an example, but that He might die for these very sins upon the cross, and open a fountain in His
precious Blood where they can all be washed away. But that Blood cannot be applied to the sins of our
proud hearts until we have been broken in repentance as to what has already happened and as to what we
already are. This will mean allowing the light of God to go through every part of our hearts and into every
one of our relationships. It will mean that we shall have to see that the sins of pride, which God will show
us, made it necessary for Jesus to come from heaven and die on the Cross that they might be forgiven. It
will mean not only asking Him to forgive us but asking others too. And that will be humbling indeed. But
as we crawl through the door of the broken ones we shall emerge into the light and glory of the highway
of holiness and humility.
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CHAPTER 9
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is this fact that bestows upon it its power with God for men. For this disposition has ever been of supreme
value to God. Humility, lamb-likeness, the surrender of our wills to God are what He looks for supremely
from man. It was to manifest all this that God ever created the first man. It was his refusal to walk this
path that constituted his first sin (and it has been the heart of sin ever since). It was to bring this
disposition back to earth that Jesus came. It was simply because the Father saw this in Him that He could
say, "My Son, in Whom I am well pleased." It was because the shedding of His Blood so supremely
expressed this disposition that it is so utterly precious to God and so all-availing for man and his sin.
THE SECOND QUESTION
We come now to the second question - how can we experience its full power in our lives? Our hearts
surely tell us the answer, as we look on the Lamb, bowing His Head for us on Calvary - only by being
willing to have the same disposition that ruled Him and by bending our necks in brokenness as He bowed
His. Just as it is the disposition of the Lamb that bestows upon the Blood its power, so it is only as we are
willing to be partakers of the same disposition of the Lamb, that we shall know its full power in our lives.
And we can be partakers of His disposition (Phil 2:5; 1 Cor 2:16), for it has been made transferable to us
by His death. All the fruits of the Holy Spirit, mentioned in Galatians 5 - love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control - what are they but the expressions of the lamb-like
nature of the Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit wants to fill us with them. Let us never forget that the Lord
Jesus, though exalted to the throne of God, is still the Lamb (the book of Revelation tells us that) and He
wants to reproduce Himself in us.
ARE WE WILLING?
But are we willing for this? There is a hard unyielding self, which stands up for itself and resists others,
that will have to be broken if we are to be willing for the disposition of the Lamb, and if the precious
Blood is to reach us in cleansing power. We may pray long to be cleansed from some sin and for peace to
be restored to our hearts, but unless we are willing to be broken on the point in question and be made a
partaker of the Lamb's humility there, nothing will happen. Every sin we ever commit is the result of the
hard unbroken self taking up some attitude of pride, and we shall not find peace through the Blood until
we are willing to see the source of each sin and reverse the wrong attitude that caused it by a specific
repentance, which will always be humbling. This means that we have not merely to try and make
ourselves feel the humility of Jesus. We have only to walk in the light and be willing for God to reveal
any sin that may be in our lives, and we shall find ourselves asked by the Lord to perform all sorts of
costly acts of repentance and surrender, often over what we term small and trivial matters. But their
importance can be gauged by what it costs our pride to put them right. He may show us a confession or
apology that has to be made to someone or an act of restitution that has to be done (Matt 5:23-24). He
may show us that we must climb down over something and yield up our fancied rights in it (Jesus had no
rights - have we then?). He may show us that we must go to the one who has done us a wrong and confess
to him the far greater wrong of resenting it (Jesus never resented anything or anyone - have we any right
to?). He may call us to be open with our friends that they know us as we really are, and thus be able to
have true fellowship with us. These acts may well be humiliating and a complete reversal of our usual
attitudes of pride and selfishness, but by such acts we shall know true brokenness and become partakers
of the humility of the Lamb. As we are willing for this in each issue, the Blood of the Lamb will be able
to cleanse us from all sin and we shall walk with God in white, with His peace in our hearts.
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CHAPTER 10
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there but that we have not seen them. We have been living in a realm of illusion about ourselves. God
must be true in all that He says about us. In one form or another, He sees these things expressing
themselves in us (unless we have recognised them and allowed God to deal with them) - unconscious
selfishness, pride and self-congratulation; jealousy, resentment and impatience; reserve, fears and
shyness; dishonesty and deception; impurity and lust; if not one thing, then another. But we are blind to it.
We are perhaps so occupied with the wrong the other man has done us, that we do not see that we are
sinning against Christ in not being willing to take it with His meekness and lowliness. Seeing so clearly
how the other man wants his own way and rights, we are blind to the fact that we want ours just as much;
and yet we know there is something missing in our lives. Somehow we are not in vital fellowship with
God. We are not spiritually crisp. Our service does not "crackle with the supernatural." Unconscious sin is
none the less sin with God and separates us from Him. The sin in question may be quite a small thing,
which God will so readily show us, if we are only willing to ask Him.
There is yet another error we fall into, when we are not willing to recognise the truth of what God says of
the human heart. Not only do we protest our own innocence, but we often protest the innocence of our
loved ones. We hate to see them being convicted and humbled and we hasten to defend them. We do not
want them to confess anything. We are not only living in a realm of illusion about ourselves, but about
them too, and we fear to have it shattered. But we are only defending them against God - making God a
liar on their behalf, as we do on our own, and keeping them from entering into blessing, as we do
ourselves.
Only a deep hunger for real fellowship with God will make us willing to cry to God for His all-revealing
Light and to obey it when it is given.
JUSTIFYING GOD
That brings us to the Publican. With all that God says about the human heart in our minds, we can see that
his confession of sin was simply a justifying of God, an admission that what God said of him was true.
Perhaps like the Pharisee, he used not to believe that what God said about man was really true of him. But
the Holy Spirit has shown him things in his life which prove God right, and he is broken. Not only does
he justify God in all that he has said, but he doubtless justifies God in all the chastening judgments God
has brought upon him. Nehemiah's prayer might well have been his, "Howbeit Thou art just in all that is
brought upon us; for Thou hast done right and we have done wickedly" (Neh 9:33).
This is ever the nature of true confession of sin, true brokenness. It is the confession that my sin is not just
a mistake, a slip, a something which is really foreign to my heart ("Not really like me to have such
thoughts or do such things!"), but that it is something which reveals the real 'I'; that shows me to be the
proud, rotten, unclean thing God says I am; that it really is like me to have such thoughts and do such
things. It was in these terms that David confessed his sin, when he prayed "Against Thee, Thee only, have
I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight, that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest and be clear
when Thou judgest" (Psalm 51:4). Let us not fear then, to make such a confession where God convicts us
that we must, thinking that it will "let Jesus down." Rather the reverse is true, for out of such confession
God gets glory, for we declare Him to be right. This brings us to a new experience of victory in Christ, for
it declares afresh, that "in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing" (Rom 7:18), and brings us to
a place where we give up trying to make our incorrigible selves holy and where we take Jesus to be our
holiness and His life to be our life.
PEACE AND CLEANSING
But the Publican did something more than justify God. He pointed to the sacrifice on the altar, and found
peace with God and cleansing from sin, as he did so. That comes out in the literal meaning of the words
which he uttered, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." In the Greek, the words mean literally, "God be
propitiated to me, the sinner." The only way by which a Jew knew that God could be propitiated was by a
sacrifice, and, in all probability, at that very hour the lamb for the daily burnt offering was being offered
up on the altar in the temple.
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With us it is the same. A man never comes to this position of brokenness, but God shows him the Divine
Lamb on Calvary's Cross, putting away his sin by the shedding of His Blood. The God who declares
beforehand what we are, provides beforehand for our sin. Jesus was the Lamb slain for our sins from the
foundation of the world. In Him, who bore them in meekness, my sins are finished. And as I, in true
brokenness, confess them, and put my faith in His Blood, they are cleansed and gone. Peace with God
then comes into my heart, fellowship with God is immediately restored, and I walk with Him in white.
This simple way of being willing to justify God and see the power of the Blood to cleanse brings within
our reach, as never before, a close walk with Jesus, a constant dwelling with Him in the Holy of Holies.
As we walk with Him in the Light, He will be showing us all the time the beginnings of things which, if
allowed to pass, will grieve Him and check the flow of His life in us - things which are the expression of
that old proud self, for which God has nothing but judgment. At no point must we protest our innocence
of what He shows us. All along we must be willing to justify Him and say, "Thou art right, Lord; that just
shows what I am," and be willing to give it to Him for cleansing. As we do so, we shall find that His
precious Blood is continuously cleansing us from sin, and that "the tide is being continuously healed at its
beginning," and Jesus is continuously filling us with His Spirit. This demands that we must be men of
"a humble and contrite spirit," that is, men who are willing to be shown the smallest thing. But such are
the ones, God says, who "dwell with Him in the high and holy place" (Isa 57:15), and who experience
continuous revival.
There then is our choice - to protest our innocence and go down to our house, unblessed, dry of soul and
out of touch with God. Or to justify God and to enter into peace, fellowship and victory through the Blood
of Jesus.
Download Roy Hession's testimony from the following link
http://www.christianissues.biz/pdf-bin/mp3s/hession_poweroftheblood.mp3
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CHAPTER 11
Forty Years Later
A Personal Interview with the Author
This is a transcript of three interviews between David Mains and Roy Hession on the subject of
revival and his book The Calvary Road, recorded in August 1988 and broadcast in November
of the same year, which was the Jubilee year of The Chapel of the Air, Wheaton, Illinois.
DAVID MAINS: Hi, good friend. I'm David Mains, greeting you again this anniversary month in the
Chapel of the Air. A new beginning - that does sound good doesn't it? “Being infused with fresh life,”
that's what that word revival means: “life coming back again.” One of the most popular and helpful books
on this subject came out way back in 1950. Only a little over a hundred pages, it was called The Calvary
Road and it's still popular today. It was written by Roy Hession, evangelist. And Roy Hession of the West
Country, near Plymouth in England, is my Chapel guest this visit and will be for the next two days.
Roy, what has been your experience with personal revival? Can you share that with us?
ROY HESSION: I would be very happy to because it is the one theme that's been preoccupying me for
the last few years. I do evangelistic work, but above all I am concerned for the revival of the church,
inasmuch as I had to have, and still have to have, an experience of revival ... and that continuously. I had
been doing evangelistic work full time - and there is a story as to how I was called to that, but I don't want
to touch on that. I had had some very fruitful years and many had turned to the Lord ... much of it, of
course, in Great Britain. Then, after a certain hight peak, I found a decline set in and I somehow lost the
power of the Holy Spirit and the liberty and power which I had once known in proclaiming the gospel.
And what I did was to try to make up for the lack of that power by my own efforts. I prayed longer; I
studied harder; I preached more vehemently, but all to no avail: that lack persisted. I little knew at the
time, but that very state of decline was making me a fit candidate for the grace of God. It was Finney who
said, “Revival always presupposes a declension. Therefore if a man can't own up to declension, he is no
candidate for revival personally.” Well, I was experiencing the declension, but as yet was not willing to
admit it. Then it was that God sent back to England some missionaries and African leaders from Uganda,
Rwanda and Kenya, and they came back expressly to share with the Christians of England what they had
been learning in revival. That was in 1947.
DAVID: And that was from the East African revival which had been going on?
ROY: Yes, they came back from the revival in East Africa, not merely to have a furlough, but to share
with us what they had been learning in it. It had been going on for years and it still goes on today, which
is over fifty years. But the beginnings had begun and already a discernible movement was taking place.
These missionaries themselves were not the fathers of the revival as much as some of its many children.
And very often they were brought into the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ through the
testimony and challenge of the Africans, can you believe it. That revival to this day is far more led by the
Africans than by the missionaries.
DAVID: Now how did this touch you?
ROY: Well, that revival touched me because I invited these men to my conference, to be the speakers,
and I little knew that they'd get more concerned for the leader of that conference than for anybody else.
And they really began to counsel me. They began to share the little they had begun to see of my need -
and I was in a state of need! I had come into a state of declension. And I remember one of them said,
“Roy, you need to repent.” I said, “Where do I need to repent” In all honesty I didn't know - I was
working so hard, I was praying so much, I was preaching so strong, doing so much. They said, “Well, we
don't know where you need to repent. We could, of course, make a suggestion. You see, we've only just
got to know you. But we've got to know enough to be able to suggest at least one place where you might
begin, and that's in your relationship with your wife. When we came on the campus, you said. 'Fellows,
get in the car, I've got to go to one of the other houses to make some arrangements.' And in that house we
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saw you talking to a young lady; we didn't know by the way in which you spoke to her whether she was
your secretary or your wife. We suggest you might begin there, because revival for us began in our most
intimate relationship ... in the home.” Well, I took it to heart. I had a special “victorious life” message,
which had ceased to work. And I said to myself, I'm going to park that message and am just going to
respond to current light as it comes. That current light came to show me sin where I hadn't seen it before,
and I began on a path of repentance. Yes, with my wife - my attitude toward her. You see, I was a tense
man - and a tense man is a difficult person to live with. And I had to see it wasn't her fault in this or that,
it was mine; and I began to take that to Jesus. And I the evangelist, quite well known in England, began
on a new path of calling sin sin and a path of repentance - and that, of course, in turn meant I had to find a
new power in the blood of Jesus Christ to deal with all the things that the light was showing in my life.
DAVID: And you deal with that so beautifully in this book, The Calvary Road. Again, it's been out many
years and still continues to be a help to people. Thank you for sharing so personally. There is a certain
sense in which that transparency is a part of revival. God works with you and then you share that and He
is able to work with others. I appreciate that. We've started out on a good footing here and that makes me
very comfortable.
In the very beginning of your book you continue this theme. You use the work brokenness. You say that
brokenness is always one of those first parts of revival. I need you to define what you mean by
“brokenness” when you use the term.
ROY: I think it is very important to do that because it does occur, of course, in Scripture - several places -
where the broken and contrite heart is spoken of. But unless we really explain what we we mean, that
word could become a cliché. People could get the impression of “many tears” and “terrible experience.”
It's nothing of the sort; it is a matter of the will. Brokenness is the opposite to hardness. Hardness says
“It's your fault,” brokenness says “It's mine.” And it's a struggle for a man to be willing to say that,
especially when he has professed so loudly that he's right ... the other fellows have got him wrong. When
God wins a victory in his life he says, “Fellows, I'm the one who is wrong.” They too may be wrong, but
that's not his business. He is the one who's wrong and very often the wrong is his reaction to their wrong.
They may be wrong in their actions, but he is wrong in his reactions - his anger, his resentment, his
jealousy - and nothing is gained by confessing the other fellow's sins. It's got to be me, and brokenness is
me being willing to do that.
DAVID; You haven't changed this message - that is what you wrote in this book many, many years ago.
Is brokenness something we take care of once and for all, or does brokenness remain a constant, daily
necessity?
ROY: It's a daily necessity, as the light shows things up. The Word talks about walking in the light as He
is in the light. Light is that which reveals, darkness that which hides. And when the light of God shows up
something that grieves Him, something wrong in me, my business is to say, “Yes, Lord, You're right, I'm
wrong” - and that's a daily thing. And as I do it, the blood of Jesus Christ is a daily cleansing for me.
DAVID: I think that's wonderful. Here's a short quote we used by permission from your book The
Calvary Road as this month's Chapel bookmark. Let me read it for you and then get you to comment on it
just a little bit. Here it says: “To be broken is the beginning of revival. It is painful, it is humiliating, but it
is the only way. It is being 'Not I, but Christ,' and a 'C' is a bent 'I.' ” What do you mean by that?
ROY: Well, this whole thought of brokenness is set against the Scriptures that speak about the stiff neck.
“Be not stiff-necked” comes in one of more places in the Old Testament. And when a man is accused you
can almost see his neck going stiff: “That's not true, you're not right.” And you know, when at last he
says, “It's all my fault,” well, you can almost see the head bowed too. These brothers who came from East
Africa came with a chorus one of them had written. These are the words:
Lord, bend that proud and stiff-necked I,
Help me to bow the head and die,
Beholding Him on Calvary,
Who bowed His head for me.
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DAVID: It's wonderful. The Lord willing, I'll talk with Roy Hession again tomorrow about the adventure
of walking with Christ - this One who is our example, who humbled Himself even to death on a cross.
Join us, please, in the Chapel of the Air.
SECOND INTERVIEW
DAVID: We are beginning our fiftieth year of broadcasting and we are proclaiming the King's offer of a
new beginning for His people. In all places where we are heard we are talking about a fresh start for
God's people, with the option of doing things right this time. Sound good? Join us in our Jubilee
celebration here in the Chapel of the Air. Hi again, good friend. David Mains here with my guest, Roy
Hession. We have reprinted chapter 2 of your book, Roy, in our monthly Reveille magazine. That chapter
is called “Cups Running Over” and it is a word picture about new life in Christ. Now I want you to
explain for us, please, what you mean by “cups running over.' Okay?
ROY: This in an expression that became current in the early days of revival in East Africa. That revival,
by the way, continues unabated on a larger scale than ever before, although they have had many painful
vicissitudes. “Cups running over” did become a phrase. It is, of course, taken from Psalm 23: “My cup
runneth over.” And it was used, and might still be used, to express the joy and liberty that's come to a
person who has been newly washed and made clean in the blood of Jesus Christ. It was first used by a
dear friend of mine, Dr. Joe Church, who now lives in retirement in England. He was one of the early
leaders of the revival and he gave a special picture at a great open-air conference (we call them
conventions) in a natural amphitheater. Thousands and thousands were there, and he gave the picture of
Jesus coming into that gathering with a golden water pot on His shoulder in which was the Water of Life.
And he suggested that if they needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit that they hold out their hand in the
shape of a cup, and he bade them imagine that Jesus was coming down the rows with the golden water pot
and He would tilt the water pot and fill the cup until it ran over with the Water of Life. However, he said,
He might come to some cup, look in and shake His head sadly and pass on, because that cup was stained
and dirty. And before He could fill that cup He would have to cleanse those stains of sin. Some people
might say, “Well, this is not sin, it's just part of my make-up.” “No,” he says, “you must call it sin.” And
as you confess it, He cleanses it with His blood and He fills what He has cleansed with the Water of Life.
And that came to be a phrase; when a man was newly cleansed he would say, “Praise the Lord, my cup's
now running over” - but only because the blood of Jesus had been applied.
DAVID: You do so well with that in your book The Calvary Road, in chapter 2, “Cups Running Over.” In
fact, we reprinted chapter 2 in our monthly Reveille magazine, and here is this picture in detail of Christ
filling one's life ... but not being able to do that if sin is there. Are you talking about big sins like
murdering someone, or possibly committing adultery, say, or thieving, or are you talking about everyday
sins that would keep Christ from filling that cup?
ROY: Everyday sins, the big and the little. There is a difference in His sight. And many of them are not
sins of action but sins of reaction. Maybe the wrong action was somebody else's, but my reaction to their
action is wrong too. Jealousy, or anger, or resentment - that is enough to stain the cup and prevent Him
from filling it. But if I confess those things as sin, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin.
DAVID: Do you think the average Christian today regularly does confess sin, or is this something that is
somewhat foreign to Christian thinking?
ROY: Well, it was a bit foreign to my own, evangelist that I was. I wouldn't have said at that time that
repentance was an essential part of my Christian life. And for that reason the blood of Jesus Christ wasn't
all that important to me. But now, this is all my hope and peace, nothing but the blood of Jesus; this is all
my righteousness, nothing but the blood of Jesus. And I have been helped to walk this way, calling things
by their proper name and proving there is power, wonder-working power in the blood of Jesus Christ.
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DAVID: It's wonderful. In this chapter “Cups Running Over” you use the term regularly. You talk about
continuous revival. Now some people think of revival as happening at a point in time and then you can
bask in the warmth of what took place. That's not what you're talking about is it?
ROY: No, continuous. I mean, a thing that is in the past is in the past, it is not affecting me in the present.
But Jesus is alive in the present and His blood has never lost its power. This revival movement is the
biggest demonstration of continuous revival. They have recently celebrated their fiftieth anniversary of
revival. They didn't call it that, but it so happened that certain gatherings were just about the fiftieth year
after, and that revival is going on as never before; for one reason, because the blood has never lost its
power and they on their part have been willing to go on repenting. Indeed, I have friends who have
written to me in the past who have ended their letters, “Yours, repenting and rejoicing.”
DAVID: It's wonderful. But let's go back to you personally, Roy. I assume you have held your cup up to
Christ recently, if I may use that word picture. When did you do this and how? ... just to be very practical
for people.
ROY: Well, the Lord recently showed me something that I hadn't really seen as sin. Now that is God's
dealings; He shows you something to be sin that you hadn't been seeing as sin. I've been living now for
the last few years in a seaside town near Plymouth and it has one of the largest Baptist churches in Great
Britain, and that is the church I attend. The minister is a friend of mine, and we've been there the last few
years as I have not been filling my calendar up so much as before ... so I've had many spare Sundays. I
have attended that church and, do you know, I haven't appreciated it. I haven't been really blessed by it. I
haven't enjoyed their style of singing. Oh, it's orthodox, yet I could express reasons - lacks here and lacks
there. But the other day the Lord showed me, at the bottom of it all was that I had not been drawn in.
“You,” He said, “have been usually out there at the front, but now you're just sitting in the pew.” Then
some time later I was preparing a message on one of Jesus' parables - the one that says when you are
invited to a feast, don't sit down in the highest room, but rather sit in the lowest room. And the Lord said
to me, “You should have loved that lowest place, for there you would have found me. I took the lowest
place for you. But you have been restive because you've not been willing to embrace it happily.” I called
that sin and put it under the blood, and I find there's a new something in my heart because of that fact.
And that has put me on the track of some other sins in my life, unsuspected forms of self - and every one
of them is sin - but the blood of Jesus has never lost its power and is mighty enough, sufficient enough to
bring even me into the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ again.
DAVID: You live what you preach, don't you? Bless you, it's so good to have you as a guest. Have you
ever experienced revival beyond just the personal, Roy? Have you ever been in a situation where many,
many, many people are experiencing revival, many cups running over?
ROY: Yes, but I hesitate to chalk up successes; that is one of the tendencies that I've got to recognize as
sin. And if I think too much about that, that'll be the end of the overflow. And I think one of the reasons
people don't see success more often is that they are wanting it too much. It should be enough to have
Jesus, and in Jesus all else. And He will take care of the overflow to others.
DAVID: Beautiful. Your answers are always good. Then, Roy, I have one more question for you. You
make this topic sound very simple, the topic of personal revival. Would you say that it really isn't all that
complicated?
ROY: It certainly is not complicated and we don't really need to introduce anything else than what we
find in Scripture. 1 John 1:7 says, “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one
with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin.” Now in John's writings
light and darkness are not vague synonyms for good and evil. Light, rather, is simply that which reveals,
darkness that which hides. And God is light, the All-revealing One - and if we are prepared to walk in His
light and say yes to what His light may reveal as sin, we'll go on in the light. And if we're prepared to
simply walk in the light and say, “Yes, Lord, You're right and I'm wrong on that matter,” the blood of
Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin ... and we can't be more right with God than what the blood of Jesus
makes us when we call sin sin. Go on doing it and you'll go on rejoicing.
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DAVID: Thank you, Roy Hession. Join me again tomorrow, friend, and we'll explore further this
privilege we have of walking with Christ in our everyday world.
THIRD INTERVIEW
DAVID: Roy, you say that if God is to bless the reader through these pages of your book he must come to
them with a deep hunger of heart. He must be possessed with a dissatisfaction of the state of the church in
general and of himself in particular - especially of himself. Now I've read that in a lot of other places.
Why is it that revival so often begins with this sense of dissatisfaction?
ROY: Well, to ask the question is almost to answer it. In the very nature of the case, if you are going to
enjoy the meal your wife has prepared for you you've got to have a nice appetite, you've go to be hungry.
And perhaps you need to have a few unfortunate experiences of other people's cooking, and then you
come back to the one whose cooking you know does satisfy. And the same is true here: grace is flowing
like a river, millions of others have been supplied ... but you've got to be hungry, you've got to be in need -
and I want to tell you those are the times when I get blessed. I do not get blessed when I read my Bible as
a matter of duty for a daily quiet time. Rather, when I come feeling bad, those are the times when it
speaks, livingly! And again and again I have to say to the Lord, “I want to tell You something: I'm not in
spiritual good shape,” “Just fine,” says the Lord, “anything more?” “Well, I haven't got much peace.”
“Anything more? Come on, let it all out.” And when I come like that, grace meets me; because when I
admit that I'm in that position, in the very nature of the case I become a candidate for that marvelous
grace of our loving Lord, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt. Grace is not God's reward for the
faithful, it's His gift for the empty and feeble and failing. When I am feeling like that, I'm just the one who
is going to be blessed.
DADID: Take that phrase, “grace meets me.” Explain what you mean by that for someone who maybe
doesn't know what grace is.
ROY: Grace is the undeserved favour of God, and you are no candidate for grace unless you are
undeserving. You can't be too down, too wrong, for grace. That's where Jesus gets His glory; not in the
number of good Christians He pats on the back, but in the failures He restores.
DAVID: Beautiful! Now in The Calvary Road you talk about the self-satisfied Pharisee and the
dissatisfied Publican in the parable Christ told. Do you remember the chapter, “Protesting Our
Innocence”?
ROY: Yes, well, that is what we all naturally do. We naturally justify ourselves, therefore you're no
candidate for God to justify. God justifies - listen - the ungodly. Have you ever heard a greater apparent
contradiction? God who justifies the ungodly! He who commands earthly judges “You shall justify the
innocent but condemn the wicked”(Deu 25:1) is here doing the very opposite. “I'm setting My court of
grace - it's in order to justify those who are ungodly.” He declares those to be right who admit they are
wrong. And to see that, gives you a bigger incentive than ever before to take the place of the wrong one.
DAVID: So all of self becomes a hindrance to revival, doesn't it? Whether it's selfishness, or self-effort,
self-indulgence, self-pity, or self-righteousness.
ROY: Yes, the things you've mentioned all begin with self. They are all sinful and it's not without
significance that the central letter of the little word sin is “I.”
DAVID: It's a big problem, isn't it, to somehow get beyond that? Dissatisfaction - that's a good thing;
when we are dissatisfied we aspire for something more, and God fills that in us. If we don't have any
dissatisfaction we don't aspire for anything more.
ROY: Well, I don't like the word “aspire”; that looks as if I'm going to get better. I come empty; my
dissatisfaction draws me to the One who has got something good for those who confess they are failures.
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DAVID: I agree with what you say; it's a good correction. Your book The Calvary Road is about revival.
You use that word a lot, but you don't equate the ongoing experience of revival with an emotional high.
Now, is revival ever emotional.
ROY: Of course, life is full of emotion; sometimes sad, sometimes glad, sometimes shouting. And you're
given good grounds for which to shout and praise; not that I'm wanting people to shout, necessarily, but
there is solid ground for it. When grace shows me that my righteousness is absolutely unassailable before
God in the Person of Jesus Christ, that I needn't go struggling and striving and mourning - that's
something worth praising for! It isn't just an unaccountable emotion, that's the point. You're given solid,
rational grounds for your joy.
DAVID: That's well said; your answers are wonderful. Let's talk just a little while about the blood of
Jesus. You come back to that again and again. I am not sure the average person is conscious of the value
of Christ's blood in terms of daily living. Do you sense Christ's blood being operative in your life on, say,
a daily basis?
ROY: Yes, I don't think you could have asked a more important question. What is meant by the blood of
Jesus? Some people are a bit squeamish when they hear preaching about the blood. And when they are
called upon to sing about the blood they lose their enthusiasm - because some people can't bear the sight
of blood. The first time a nurse is present at an operation she will probably faint; and yet the Christian is
all the time glorying in the cross and in the blood of Jesus Christ. Now what does it mean? There is a
famous Old Testament incident, the Passover. The firstborn died in every house except where that
particular Jewish home had taken a lamb, slain it, sprinkled its blood upon the door - not only slain the
lamb, but sprinkled the blood, for God had said, “When I see the blood I will pass over you.” Note that in
the instructions given for the slaying of the lamb and the sprinkling of its blood these words occur: “And
the blood shall be to you for a token.” A token of what? Apparently it wasn't the physical blood that was
important, it was that of which that blood was a token. What is that? It was a token of judgment met. God
said, “Judgment is coming on every house”; but the blood said, “A lamb's been slain here; the judgment
that should have fallen on the eldest son has fallen on the lamb, and it can't come in a second time.” So
the blood is a token of that fact, that judgment has been met. It's as simple as that; it always speaks of the
finished work of Christ. There's a lovely hymn we sing in England:
Jesus the sinner's Friend,
We hide ourselves in Thee
God looks upon Thy sprinkled blood,
It is our only plea.
Yes, the blood is a token that all the judgment that was my due has already been met and finished with.
DAVID: Amen, and that's true in our lives on a daily basis, isn't it?
ROY: Yes, indeed! There's the shedding of the blood once for all, but we've got to sprinkle it by faith, and
claim it for everything that would otherwise put us out of fellowship with God.
DAVID: Am I out of line in asking you what your age is?
ROY: Eighty.
DAVID: You're eighty; my, and this was written in 1950. That's a long time ago. You were optimistic
about what God was doing among His people when you wrote The Calvary Road. Are you still optimistic
about what God is doing?
ROY: Yes, I never knew, or thought, that He would use that book as He has used it. I've been absolutely
staggered. It is only because - not because of the book but the working of the Lord and the hunger of the
saints of God. They are hungry as never before, and I want to spend my remaining days in helping to lead
people back to Calvary, back to the blood, back to liberty, back to revival.
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DAVID: Amen. And the continuing popularity of the book is a good sign that people are still listening to
your message, the message about Christ and His blood. I have one last question for you, Roy Hession -
how good to have you here. Its been a privilege to talk to you these last three days. These three visits have
gone by much too quickly. In closing, do you have any thoughts that can kind of summarize what we've
been saying about revival?
ROY: Well, first it must being with the individual; not with the other fellow, but with me. He may be
wrong, but I'm wrong too, probably in my reactions to him. Therefore as far as I am concerned, it begins
with me. Then secondly, I think I need to repeat what Finney said: “Revival always presupposes a
declension”; and therefore, in the nature of the case, the man who is the most ready to admit there has
been a declension is the more likely to be a candidate for revival. It's got to begin with the admission of
my need. I would like to say very forcibly, revival is not a green valley getting greener, but a valley full
of dry bones (Ezekiel 37) being made to live again, and those bones to stand up a mighty army. Not a
good Christian becoming a better Christian, but a man who is prepared to confess “Mine is a valley full of
dry bones” being made to live again. I've heard people admit it - and it's broken their hearts. “Mine is a
valley full of dry bones; I'm a minister, maybe, but it's a valley full of dry bones!” Splendid, brother;
praise the Lord, that you were ready to confess it. If you realise it, that gives you your qualification for
Jesus. He belongs to you if only by your failures; He's a specialist in sin, is Jesus. This is where He
excels. When you take that place, you're a candidate and you are not going to be disappointed.
DAVID: Sounds very much like your book again. What a great adventure, walking with Christ in our
everyday world.
..........ooo000ooo..........
Roy Hession
We Would See Jesus, also by Roy Hession, is a wonderful follow-up to The Calvary Road. For this book
and Be Filled Now!,
Go to the download page at http://www.christianissues.biz/revival.html
Tongues
Today's Tongues, by Bryce Hartin, is a small booklet which gives a counsellor's eye-opening insight into
today's tongues phenomena. It takes very little time to read yet gives a clear and convincing Biblical
argument. Please take the time to study this material, with an open mind and in the light of Scripture.
Go to the download page at http://www.christianissues.biz/tongues.html
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Counselling Tongues Speaking People, by Bryce Hartin, has been written as a result of observation and
personal counselling of those who 'speak in tongues' or have been 'slain in the spirit' or have been 'prayed
over in tongues' or had 'hands lain upon them.'
It is free to download from: http://www.christianissues.biz/tongues.html
All About Speaking In Tongues, by Fernand Legrand, reveals how Pentecostals 'created' Charismatic
Catholics. This book is well written, by someone in the know, and deals with much Scripture.
Go to the download page at http://www.christianissues.biz/tongues.html
Bryce Hartin
The Christian, His Enemies And His Armour, was written by Bryce Hartin as an aid to the spiritual
warfare in which all Christians are engaged. The writer feels that perhaps the greatest assistance he can
offer is to give some Biblical instruction on the Christian's enemies - what they can and cannot do - and
on the Christian's armour and how to use it.
Go to the download page at http://www.christianissues.biz/thechristian.html
Riding The Waves is a booklet, by the same author, in which the background of today's religious trends
and the formation of the Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement is discussed.
Go to the download page at http://www.christianissues.biz/thechristian.html
Living In A Shattered Society is another booklet, by Bryce Hartin, which tells of a Christian's need not
to be conformed to world.
Go to the download page at http://www.christianissues.biz/thechristian.html
The Last Days, exposes the great deception of these last days. The church is in trouble - deep trouble and
many within its ranks are confused and frightened.
Go to the download page at http://www.christianissues.biz/thechristian.html
Dennis Hartin
God's Conditions For Revival, by Dennis Hartin. "The Church is in an incredible dilemma." That was
the comment of a young sales executive ... One prominent minister went so far as to say that the church as
an institution was dead. This book outlines God's conditions which were previously met and led to
revival.
To download this book, click on
http://www.christianissues.biz/pdf-bin/dennishartin/godsconditionsforrevival.pdf
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